Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries: Interspersed with Some Particulars Respecting the AuthorGodwin, William
Philosophy
Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries: Interspersed with Some Particulars Respecting the Author
Godwin, William
Human beings; Psychology -- Early works to 1850
The mode therefore in which the advocates of the doctrine of necessity
have universally talked and written, is one of the most memorable
examples of the hallucination of the human intellect. They have at
all times recommended that we should translate the phrases in which
we usually express ourselves on the hypothesis of liberty, into the
phraseology of necessity, that we should talk no other language than
that which is in correspondence with the severest philosophy, and that
we should exert ourselves to expel all fallacious notions and delusions
so much as from our recollection. They did not perceive what a wide
devastation and destruction they were proposing of all the terms and
phrases that are in use in the communications between man and man
in actual life.--They might as well have recommended that we should
rigorously bear in mind on the ordinary occasions of life, that there is
no such thing as colour, that which we ordinary call by that name having
no existence in external objects, but belonging only to our way of
perceiving them.
The language which is suggested to us by the conception of the freedom
of human actions, moulds the very first articulations of a child,
"I will," and "I will not;" and is even distinctly conveyed by his
gestures, before he arrives at the power of articulation. This is the
explanation and key to his vehement and ungovernable movements, and his
rebellion. The petulance of the stripling, the fervent and energetic
exertions of the warrior, and the calm and unalterable resolution of
the sage, all imply the same thing. Will, and a confidence in its
efficiency, "travel through, nor quit us till we die." It is this which
inspires us with invincible perseverance, and heroic energies, while
without it we should be the most inert and soulless of blocks, the
shadows of what history records and poetry immortalises, and not men.
Free will is an integral part of the science of man, and may be said to
constitute its most important chapter. We might with as much propriety
overlook the intelligence of the senses, that medium which acquaints us
with an external world or what we call such, we might as well overlook
the consideration of man's reason, his imagination or taste, as fail to
dwell with earnest reflection and exposition upon that principle which
lies at the foundation of our moral energies, fills us with a moral
enthusiasm, prompts all our animated exertions on the theatre of the
world, whether upon a wide or a narrow scale, and penetrates us with
the most lively and fervent approbation or disapprobation of the acts
of ourselves and others in which the forwarding or obstructing human
happiness is involved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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